Noodling behind a null-sec nobber
21st August 2013 – 5.45 pmLooking for more luck in the hunt tonight has me heading through the only wormhole at home. Our static connection takes me to a class 3 w-space system with a tower and no ships visible on my directional scanner, which neither fills me with nor sinks my expectations. There may be more to see, more to find, or new pilots turning up at any moment. And as my previous visit to C3a, some four months earlier, had me missing a hauler but bagging a more expensive transport I kinda hope someone does come on-line. Until then, I'll scan for wormholes.
The nine anomalies and scan six signatures hold a dying exit to low-sec empire space, but two more wormholes offer potential. One is simply a connection from null-sec, but the other is a K162 from class 4 w-space, which could hold activity. I enter the system to see what's happening, and find in C4a much the same as I left in C3a. An Orca is added to d-scan along with the tower, but I doubt the industrial command ship is piloted.
I locate the tower, confirm the Orca's empty, and spy a familiar name when checking information about the tower. The director of the local corporation is a chap named Von Keigei. Do I know him? Not personally, not yet. Maybe we can be formally introduced today, but if he's not around at the moment then it's likely someone else opened the wormhole to C3a. Scanning the five anomalies and five signatures indeed resolves another wormhole, leading back in to deeper class 4 w-space.
There could be lots of scanning with nothing to show for it this evening. D-scan is clear on the wormhole in C4b, although only a single planet is in range. A tower was elsewhere four months ago, and it remains in the same place, empty. A second tower is almost more interesting, with a bunch of ships inside its force field that would be worth listing were any of them piloted. As it is, I'm stuck with another inactive system holding ten anomalies and a whopping thirty-eight signatures. Tidy up occasionally, guys.
I ignore all but the chubbiest signatures to sift for K162s. The exit-side of the wormhole gives a pretty strong signature, and class 4 w-space is notorious for almost never, if ever, having any random outbound connections. So because I entered the system through its static wormhole, if there are any more wormholes to find they are almost certainly K162s. Being able to ignore all the data and relic sites, having weak signatures and taking an extra scan cycle or two to identify, really can save time. As such, I ignore banks and banks of gas clouds and pluck out, oh great, a K162 from class 5 w-space.
Just as class 4 w-space has a tendency to chain itself together, so does class 5 w-space. Swapping one for the other is no great indication that I'm about to find the end of the constellation. But I've yet to see another pilot, so back I go, deeper in to w-space, hoping to find a target. Ugh, C5a is a black hole system too, making it no surprise to not find any occupation, itself an indication that I have another K162 to find. At least the there are only five signatures with the thirteen anomalies, so I resolve the next wormhole in little time.
The wormhole I resolve doesn't feel particularly chubby, I have to say, and as C5 space can regularly connect to k-space I'm not discounting extra connections this time. And a second wormhole is chubbier, which will be the expected K162. It comes from more class 5 w-space, naturally, but that remains my best choice of direction when the first wormhole turns out to be a C140 exit to low-sec. In to C5b I go, were d-scan shows me a tower and Orca, and a red giant shines down on my boat. Exploration really isn't going well tonight.
Another inactive system, but at least there are few signatures again. The first of the four is a wormhole, a rather depressing K162 from null-sec. Has this whole chain really been opened by a damned tourist, falsely raising my hopes that somewhere in this w-space constellation there is an active pilot? A second wormhole settles my frustration a little, even if it is probably a K162 from yet another C5. Which it isn't. It's a second K162 from null-sec. I have been on a wild goose chase all evening. Thanks, dick.
Trying to make the most of my wasted exploration, I poke out to one of the null-sec systems to rat and scan. I am alone in the system in Scalding Pass, and although I wasn't going to scan I can't help myself when I find a rat battleship to shoot. Two extra signatures resolve to be two wormholes, the rat battleship a wreck, and I am given a less-than-enticing pair of connections. The first is an outbound link to class 3 w-space that is both mass stressed and at the end of its life. I don't fancy getting lost in space so late in the evening, so ignore it for the second. But the other wormhole is an outbound wormhole to more class 5 w-space! I said I don't fancy getting lost in space so late in the evening, dammit.
I scanned it, I may as well look through it. I leave w-space to see what's in C5c, and return to null-sec when d-scan shows me a tower and no ships. That's a good enough look for me. I cross the system in Scalding Pass to return to C5b, and poke out through the other null-sec connection to appear alone in a system in Omist. No scanning this time, just the rats, ma'am. Actually, sod it. Not even the rats any more. I'm not in the mood today. I just turn my boat around and head home, through two C5 and two C4 systems to C3a, and back through our K162, seeing no one on the way.
12 Responses to “Noodling behind a null-sec nobber”
I'm probably the tourist who opened all those up. I followed one C5 chain from Scalding Pass to a nullsec exit WhySoSerious space. Waste of time for me too.
I found another one that linked two C3 together, and I saw a few Drakes flying between the two systems, and a Noctis on scan.
Love the blog; great stories! I'm just in wormholes for exploration and travel for now.. hopefully start some daytripping soon.
Thanks! I'm almost sorry for calling you a nobber.
Maybe we need some way of leaving our scent in system, to indicate how recently we passed through and what we found.
Maybe I need to stop reading books about otters.
I do hope you activated all those anoms in C4b. Get them moving on, you know. Though if you did not, I think I did a few hours later. I vaguely recall that system; I searched down a few gas clouds and activated them too before thinking it was too much work to get all the sigs.
Kind of eerie to have you sniffing around my place, but on the whole a plus. One shard. (Well- two.) It's easy to forget that sometimes in wspace. Especially now that, with the uber-discovery scanner -- BAD GAME DESIGN -- CCP has made it so easy to zip up and be 99% safe.
I'm a big fan of both you and Mr. Keigai. I'm living in a class 3 at the moment. To tell you how new I am, my discovery scanner went off while running anomalies the other night and I bugged out because I wasn't sure what did it. My question is why not stay and wait in Mr Keigai's system? Discovery scanner or not the most you will get day trip pvping, will be cheap ships or people like your last kill or Mr. Keikai's Orca kill. Mr. Keigai thinks he's 99% safe why not show him what a real monster is? You can call me a carebear for not caring about the scanner, but where do you fall on that spectrum?
Sorry, that last sentence was blatant tolling. Bad habit. What I meant to say was, they made being a monster a little harder, so why not be a harder monster?
Lion, you should bug out whenever you see a new sig, which you did, and you're not already in PVP ships. Bug out first. Scan it down secpnd. If it is a wormhole, congratulate yourself on maybe avoiding a gank. If not, sheepishly look around, make sure nobody saw (don't worry, they didn't), and continue what you were doing. Interrupting your farming for 5 minutes is not a big deal compared to placing billions of ISK worth of ships at risk.
There are two big problems with waiting in a system for people to log in. No, three.
First and foremost, waiting sucks. And that is especially true for open-ended waiting. What if you're waiting for me but that particular night I don't happen to play?
Second, with a whole world (minus China) playing a single shard, it is quite possible to have people who you basically never overlap with, playtimewise. I play evenings in Eastern USA time. So maybe you might run into me, but Penny is a Brit. She'd have to be up pretty late to cross my path. It can happen -- she's probably five hours later than me -- but it is unlikely.
I run across Russians from time to time -- had one living in my system for a while. I saw him on the weekend, and on one weekday late night for me (his morning). If he had not logged in then, I would have never seen him all week.
Third, even if you did camp a system indefinitely waiting for people, as soon as 16 hours pass, most of the topology of wspace is changed. Assuming you gank me and get away, and scan out, getting back to your own home may be very be difficult. And indeed, from some systems (though not mine), even scanning out is not trivial. I once had my babysitter alt in a C4 with a C5 static; when I went to extract it it took me quite some time to get out of the C5 interconnected zone.
The main problem is the boringness. I might suggest training up an alt to camp systems in a stealthy ship, and just stay hidden and wait, while you do something interesting on the main screen.
Pretty much what VK said. Timezones, activity levels, general schedules can all clash, leaving anyone with lots of waiting. I would rather be active, and even if that means scanning a dead chain at least I am doing something.
I know there are some capsuleers who stalk active systems, so it is done. But, again, getting home once finished can be awkward too, and will rely on a colleague's help because of how w-space works in one direction.
I live out of the back of an Orca so things like "home" seem extravagant to me. Once I've saved a little isk, camping in systems with small corps is exactly what I would like to do. To me the discovery scanner seems like a blessing, because people might relax their d-scanning. My schedule is flexible so jumping on when dotlan spikes isn't hard.
Assuming I have 2 accounts and want to jump a pair of strategic cruisers in an anomaly, could you recommend ship combinations? A falcon and a neut domi would be easy for me.
If you want to engage in a 2vs2 against PvE T3s, you need to be able to break their tank.
They will have local or remote active reps most of the time so you need a high DPS or neuting power.
I don't recommend a falcon as you want to be quick before potential reinforcements arrive and need to break their tank fast.
If you want to bring a BS and plan to point both ships, you need webs and scramblers as T3 are quite faster than your BS.
If I have the choice, I would bring a first T3 (preferably Proteus) for the DPS and a neuting Legion.
Just like Penny/Fin Tengu/Legion pair in fact.
Put buffer tank on them of course.
Thank you. I was thinking a Falcon for tackle and breaking RR, but I did an EFT for a covert ops tackle Proteus and love it. I like your idea but I think I will use a neuting Domi, I'm fine with just killing one.